The honest, face-the-music meeting the Jazz had about their defense, and how it helped them beat the Mavericks

On Wednesday in Oklahoma City, the Utah Jazz held a team film session prior to the morning shootaround ahead of their game against the Thunder that night.

The focus of that film session was the abysmal defense they’d played two days earlier in Portland.

“Those kind of games are embarrassing,” Brice Sensabaugh said. “As a team, we just got to buckle down.”

The Jazz’s defense has had its fair share of problems over the last couple of years even when defensive anchor Walker Kessler was healthy and on the court, but the walloping at the hands of the Trail Blazers meant that the team needed to look in the mirror.

The coaches needed to hold the players accountable, the players needed to hold one another accountable and everyone needed to face the music individually.

After that film session, the team clawed and fought through a gritty game against the Thunder, albeit a loss.

Everybody on the team, from the top down, needed to give more to the defense and they saw that when they locked in on that side of things, they were able to take the reigning champion Thunder into overtime and give them a run for their money.

Then, on Thursday night at the Delta Center, on the second night of a back-to-back set after a four-game road trip, just three days after the Jazz gave up 114 points to the Blazers through just three quarters, they turned in one of their better defensive performances of the season against the Dallas Mavericks, beating them, 116-114.

What happened in that meeting?

1 of 21

2 of 21

3 of 21

4 of 21

5 of 21

6 of 21

7 of 21

8 of 21

9 of 21

10 of 21

11 of 21

12 of 21

13 of 21

14 of 21

15 of 21

16 of 21

17 of 21

18 of 21

19 of 21

20 of 21

21 of 21

“We watched a lot of clips of (the game in Portland), and coach told us that it was the one of the worst defensive performances of the first through the third quarter in Jazz history,” Sensabaugh said.

“He just played the clips back-to-back-to-back and we kind of had to just sit and watch...the coaches were holding us accountable, and we held each other accountable.”

Against the Mavericks, in the closing minutes of a close game, there were big shots from Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George, Sensabaugh and rookie Walter Clayton Jr, but what stood out the most weren’t the offensive plays.

Instead, it was key defensive moments from Sensabaugh and Clayton that were instrumental in the Jazz securing the win.

Those are the kinds of things the Jazz are hoping they can make a consistent part of the team’s identity, because scoring is not and has not been an issue for the Jazz.

If anything, the Jazz have players such as Sensabaugh and Clayton who are natural scorers that are sacrificing on offense because they know that it’s the right decision for George and Markkanen to have the ball in their hands.

It’s necessary then for the team to lean into the details and the defense when they are sacrificing other parts of their game. If they end up on this Jazz team in the long term, it will only strengthen the group. If they end up elsewhere in the NBA it will increase their value and opportunities.

“We’ve shown that we can do it multiple times this season,” Sensabaugh said. “So I think these two games are good stepping stones for us to move forward.”